CONSTANTINE MANOS
September 12 to December 1, 2026
Constantine Manos was born in 1934 in South Carolina to Greek immigrant parents. His photographic career began when he was 13, in the school camera club, and within a few years he was a professional photographer. At the age of 19, he was hired as the official photographer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. During this time, he attended the University of South Carolina, graduating in 1955 with a BA in English Literature. After military service, he moved to New York, where he worked forEsquire, Life and Look. His bookPortrait of a Symphony, on the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was published in 1961. For the next three years, he lived in Greece, producing work that resulted inA Greek Portfolio, first published in 1972 and an award winner at Arles and at the Leipzig Book Fair. In 1963, Manos joined Magnum Photos and became a full member two years later.
A GREEK PORTFOLIO
Living in Greece for three years, Constantine Manos traveled the countryside in search of images that capture the character and beauty of a way of life that had been virtually unchanged for centuries. These pictures are the record of random wanderings in places where the only sound might be the distant tinkling of sheep bells, where hospitality for the stranger is a sacred tradition, and where time has stood still against a backdrop of rural simplicity and serenity.
With masterly insight, Manos opened his shutter on those moments that distill the essence of character and occasion to create a series of images that are timeless in their expression of the quality of life in rural Greece. Etched into the faces he found are strength and dignity that reflect survival, honor, and continuity. The book, first published in 1972, has become a sought-after classic. For this new edition of A Greek Portfolio Manos has gone back into his files to find previously unpublished images that further enhance the beauty and depth of this body of work.
A village school. Olimbos, Kaparthos, Greece, 1964
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Grandmother with granddaughter. Crete. Greece, 1964
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Watching the dance. Olympos, Karpathos, Greece, 1964
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Karpathos, 1964
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Man reading newspaper, Crete, Chania. A Greek Porfolio, 1962
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Shepherds with goat. Crete, Greece, 1964
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AMERICAN COLOR
Photographing mostly in exotic locales and at public events within the United States, such as Venice Beach and Atlantic City, Bike Week at Daytona Beach and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Constantine Manos presents a kaleidoscopic view of American culture. Although the pictures were taken in the United States, they do not pretend to constitute a general or definitive statement about the country or its people. They are instead specific moments which cannot be categorized and which exist for their own sake.
In his preface to his book American Color Manos says, “The flow of people in a setting, their changing relationship to each other and their environment, and their constantly changing expressions and movements – all combine to create dynamic situations which provide the photographer with limitless choices of when to push the button. By choosing a precise intersection between subject and time, he may transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the real into the surreal.”
